What Is an Anesthesiologist?

Meet Dr. Jason Lee, Anesthesiologist at UCLA Health

Anesthesiologists help minimize the pain and risks patients experience before, during, and after intensive medical procedures, such as surgery.

UCLA anesthesiologist Jason S. Lee, MD says his practice keeps him doing different things every day. Anesthesiologists do everything from administering anesthesiology during childbirth procedures to helping clinic patients manage chronic pain.

"Anesthesiologists are involved in the whole cycle of life," he says.

These physicians serve a vast and varied patient population. Anyone from anywhere may require anesthesia during any phase of life.

On top of practicing anesthesiology, Dr. Lee teaches in the medical school and oversees curriculum and didactics for UCLA's anesthesiology residency programs.

What Does an Anesthesiologist Do?

Anesthesiologists ensure patients who need intensive care remain as safe and comfortable as possible before, during, and after their procedures.

These physicians look ahead to achieve optimal patient outcomes.

"We're perioperative intensivists," says Dr. Lee. "We work closely with interdisciplinary teams to get our patients through their entire procedural cycle from start to finish."

Dr. Lee says anesthesiologists function like lighthouses for their care teams. During procedures, they're constantly scanning the landscape for potential issues. If they detect something concerning, they alert the team and guide them toward a more favorable course.

Anesthesiologists keep care teams agile, constantly recalibrating as patients' needs shift in real time.

Naturally, they also administer agents to induce anesthesia, making patients temporarily insensitive or numb to pain. However, this accounts for only one facet of their perioperative responsibilities.

To prepare for a procedure, an anesthesiologist will:

• Consult with patients in the clinic.
• Evaluate each patient's health status to identify and manage potential risks.
• Determine the optimal anesthesia type and administration method for each patient.

Immediately before a procedure, an anesthesiologist will:

• Administer agents to induce anesthesia.
• Closely monitor patients and adjust dosing, if necessary.

During a procedure, an anesthesiologist will:

• Collaborate closely with the entire procedural team.
• Monitor patients' vital signs and/or pain.
• Identify and resolve potential risks.
• Manage emergencies and other unexpected events.

"Anesthesiologists must be prepared to manage any emergency that comes up," explains Dr. Lee. "So we're always planning and prepping. We always have a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C."

After a procedure, an anesthesiologist will:

• Check patients' vital signs and organs to catch any complications.
• Help create individualized plans for safe and effective pain management.
• Transition patients into the next phase of their treatment or recovery.

Furthermore, an anesthesiologist's work extends far beyond procedural responsibilities. They put great care into building rapport with every patient they see.

"This is an important humanistic aspect of our work—one people don't always recognize or appreciate."

Dr. Lee says people outside his field mistakenly assume anesthesiologists don't focus on communicating with patients because they just put them to sleep.

In reality, the nature of an anesthesiologist's work makes building rapport and gaining trust critical to ensuring the best patient outcomes and experiences.

"An anesthesiologist's work involves much more than what's represented in movies or television shows. We do not spend all our time in the operating room, just putting patients to sleep."

The anesthesiologist may be the last physician a patient sees immediately before a surgery, as their anesthesia takes effect. These physicians must build rapport and gain trust quickly—often in just minutes or even seconds—and under distressing circumstances.

Their patients are about to undergo procedures involving substantial risks and serious, potentially life threatening, consequences.

"Our patients trust us with their lives," says Dr. Lee. "When they're unconscious, we advocate for them. We're the ones who speak up on their behalf. So we really work to understand their overall health and also their wishes and desires as people."

How To Become an Anesthesiologist

To become an anesthesiologist, a student must earn their bachelor’s and medical degrees and complete residency training in anesthesiology.

Those who wish to specialize further within the field may complete additional fellowship training in an anesthesiology subspecialty.

Anesthesiology Subspecialties

Anesthesiologists have plenty of opportunity to further specialize within their field.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education recognizes the following anesthesiology subspecialties:

• Addiction Medicine
• Adult Cardiothoracic
• Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine
• Clinical Informatics
• Hospice and Palliative Medicine
• Obstetric Anesthesiology
• Pain Medicine
• Pediatric Anesthesiology
• Pediatric Cardiac Anesthesiology
• Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine

Some academic medical centers may have even more niche fellowship options for anesthesiologists hoping to specialize. For example UCLA offers a Liver Transplantation Anesthesiology Fellowship and a Neuroanesthesiology Fellowship.

Dr. Lee's Advice for Aspiring Anesthesiologists

Dr. Lee didn't know what kind of medicine he wanted to practice until his third year as a med student. (He earned his medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (DGSOM) in 2012.)

During clinical rotations, Dr. Lee saw the complex field of anesthesiology clearly for the first time.

"I found myself gravitating toward the culture and the people I saw on the other side of the drapes when I was on various surgery and OB/GYN rotations," Dr. Lee recalls.

"I enjoyed seeing how calm, cool, and collected the anesthesiologists were. They got along and worked well with everyone on their teams."

He noticed how the anesthesiologists would step up during times of crisis, using shrewd communication and critical thinking skills to help guide everyone through the event.

The field enticed him on a cognitive level as well. It encompassed different subjects he'd enjoyed learning about throughout medical school, namely physiology, anatomy, and pharmacology.

"From my perspective, anesthesiology involved the ideal mix of hands-on procedural work and critical thinking."

Collectively, all these factors made Dr. Lee confident in his specialty choice. Since then, he's found great fulfilment and satisfaction in his field.

He says students poised to find similar satisfaction in anesthesiology share a few key traits:

They're team players and can communicate and collaborate efficiently and respectfully with a variety of different people.

"You definitely have to be a team player to work as an anesthesiologist," Dr. Lee says. "It's not a solo sport. We work with every different specialty in the hospital, essentially."

Anesthesiology's highly team driven nature might not sit well for students who crave the spotlight. In general, patients direct their gratitude toward their surgeons or proceduralists and rarely toward their anesthesiologists.

"Recognition is not a good reason to pursue anesthesiology. It's more of a team sport, and satisfied anesthesiologists will be okay with that,” Dr. Lee explains. “However, anesthesiologists who crave more recognition may find it through working in pain management or in the intensive care unit (ICU).”

They're flexible and proactive critical thinkers.

They're level-headed and can remain calm under enormous pressure.

"Anesthesiologists need to manage crises without becoming frantic themselves. They need to think on their feet and make sound decisions that prioritize the patient's health and wellness," Dr. Lee says.

He wants aspiring anesthesiologists to understand the work is stressful but also conducive to finding work-life balance.

Unlike other types of physicians—primary care doctors, for example—an anesthesiologist's work tends to follow a clear on-and-off pattern. 

They're "on" throughout the cycle of a patient's procedure, but after that, they're "off" because they fully transition the patient's care to the next team.

This work cadence has helped Dr. Lee find work-life balance.

"I've been able to do a lot outside of clinical anesthesia, such as teaching and developing residency training programs," he explains. "I might not have that luxury and time if I'd gone into a different specialty."

He clarifies that what "off" means to an anesthesiologist might be surprising to medical students and laypeople.

"Even when we're not actively working on a procedure, we're always checking, critically thinking, and analyzing. We're always scanning charts and testing equipment, checking in with our patients and other members of our teams."

How Much Does an Anesthesiologist Make?

According to recent Medscape compensation data, anesthesiologists practicing in the United States make more than $400,000 on average. Salaries may vary widely based on location, years of experience, and other case-by-case factors.